In a poem, the patient Mormon in the picturesque valley of the Great Salt
Lake, where he has “made the desert blossom as the rose,” looks well. With
the wonderful music of the great organ at the tabernacle sounding in your
ears, and the lofty temple near by towering to the sky, you say to
yourself, there is, after all, something solemn and impressive in all
this; but when a greasy apostle in an alapaca duster, takes his place
behind the elevated desk, and with bad grammar and slangy sentences, asks
God in a businesslike way to bless this buzzing mass of unclean,
low-browed, barbarous scum of all foreign countries, and the white trash
and criminals of our own, you find no reverence, and no religious awe.
The same mercenary, heartless lunacy that runs through the sickly
plagiarism of the Book of Mormon, pervades all this, and instead of the
odor of sanctity you notice the flavor of bilge water, and the emigrant's
own hailing sign, the all-pervading fragrance of the steerage.
Education is the foe of polygamy, and many of the young who have had the
means by which to complete their education in the East, are apostate, at
least so far as polygamy is concerned. Still, to the great mass of the
poor and illiterate of Mormondom this is no benefit. The rich of the
Mormon Church are rich because their influence with this great fraud has
made them so; and it would, as a matter of business, injure their
prospects to come out and bolt the nomination.
[Illustration: THE FAMILY WASH.]
Utah, even with the Edmunds bill, is hopelessly Mormon; all adjoining
States and Territories are already invaded by them, and the delegate in
Congress from Wyoming is elected by the Mormon vote.
I believe that I am moderately liberal and free upon all religious
matters, but when a man's confession of faith involves from three to
twenty-seven old corsets in the back yard every spring, and a clothes line
every Monday morning that looks like a bridal trousseau emporium struck by
a cyclone, I must admit that I am a little bit inclined to be sectarian in
my views.
It's bad enough to be slapped across the features by one pair of long wet
hose on your way to the barn, but to have a whole bankrupt stock of cold,
wet garments every week fold their damp arms around your neck, as you
dodge under the clothes line to drive the cow out of the yard, is wrong.
It is not good for man to be alone, of course, but why should he yearn to
fold a young ladies' seminary to his bosom? Why should this morbid
sentiment prompt him to marry a Female Suffrage Mass Meeting? I do not
wish to be considered an extremist in religious matters, but the doctrine
that requires me to be sealed to a whole emigrant train, seems unnatural
and inconsistent.
The Newspaper.
An Address Delivered Before the Wisconsin State Press Association, at
White-Water, Wis., August 11, 1886.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Press of Wisconsin:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account